


Zai Gezunt

by Arlome



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, Judaism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:13:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22410007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arlome/pseuds/Arlome
Summary: He comes back home to a few letters in his mailbox.
Relationships: Phryne Fisher/Jack Robinson
Comments: 18
Kudos: 86
Collections: Miss Fisher's Flashfic Challenge Heat 3





	Zai Gezunt

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I wrote for two prompts. I couldn't help it!
> 
> Here you go, Jewish Jack!
> 
> Zai Gezunt is Yiddish for "be healthy"

He comes back home to a few letters in his mailbox. The brown envelopes are tied with string, the hand on the paper elegant and careful; it’s clear that somebody wrote these letters with great love and shipped them with longing, and Jack smiles a little with the anticipation of devouring them.

A tumbler of very decent whisky and a plate of biscuits accompany him to one of the chairs in his little parlour and he has to school himself not to tear at the envelope like an enthusiastic little child. His fingers tremble over the spidery words – no doubt the ink was administered to paper by a hand that shook much as his does now – and he takes a deep breath before slicing the letter open.

As he’s suspected, most of the letters are written by his cousin Miriam, but he does spy a letter or two from his grandmother, and he goes for that first.

 _Mein liebe yingeleh,_ the letter begins, and Jack’s breath shudders in his chest and his eyes moisten. He’s a grown man, closer to forty than thirty, but his ancient grandmother will forever see him as a rosy-cheeked child. He drinks two tumblers as he reads her letter – a mundane thing, mostly tales from the shtetel; a few titbits about his cousins and their babes – the plate of biscuits remains untouched.

 _And don’t you forget to light a neshamah candle for your grandfather’s soul, my darling Yochanan_ , “the old woman concludes her long letter. “As you were named after him, and he’d appreciate the effort.”

Jack laughs wetly and wipes at his moist eyes. His grandmother always insisted on using the Hebrew version of his rather Christian name. He was named after his father, of course – John Robinson, a good gentile man of decent breeding – but his middle name came to him from the old world, and an old man, as did his German.

Jack Benjamin Robinson rises from his seat to find a candle.

*

He arrives at her house for supper, with a brand-new tie and a lovely bottle of red wine in hand. She meets him at the foot of the stairs and smiles softly.

“Jack,” she sighs, and reaches out to straighten the elaborate knot. “You clean up _very_ nicely. What have you got in your hands?”

He lifts the bottle for her inspection, pleased with the way her eyes light up.

“German?” she asks, her voice rising a little in delight. “My, Jack, you’re full of surprises! First Italian, now German, where are you getting your eclectic supply of wine from?”

She means to take the bottle from him, but he takes it away and raises an eyebrow at her, the corner of his lips quirking upwards just a little.

“If you’re good, I’ll tell you,” he rumbles almost suggestively, and his stomach flutters pleasantly at the sultry little spark in her eyes as they drop to his lips.

“I’ll try to behave, Inspector,” she teases and takes his arm in hers, leading him to the dining room, her shifting hip pressed tightly to his.

The dinner is excellent, as always, and Jack eats the food with a hearty appetite, but when Phryne reaches for the bread and tries to offer him some, he shakes his head and refuses.

“No bread for me, thank you, Miss Fisher,” he declines politely, taking a sip from the wine instead.

Phryne frowns, but places the basket of fresh loaves on the table all the same.

“I don’t understand,” she muses, and he notices with growing unease that she’s stopped eating. “You love Mr B’s garlic bread. He baked it especially for you.”

Jack can’t help but feel some guilt settling at the pit of his rather full stomach. He places his cutlery on his plate and leans back in his seat.

“I’m truly sorry Mr Butler went to all this trouble, Miss Fisher,” he begins, Hesitating a little. “But I don’t eat bread this week. It’s, uh – it’s Passover, you see.”

Phryne’s eyes grow wide and her mouth drops open in a very unladylike manner.

Not that he’ll ever tell her that.

“Jack Robinson,” she cries, “Are – are you _Jewish_?”

He stiffens and presses his right thumb into his left-hand palm, anticipating unease.

“I am,” he answers guardedly. “Is that a problem?”

“No!” she exclaims, her expression shocked, “of course not! It’s just – you never said, and I assumed… well, Robinson isn’t a Jewish name!”

Jack relaxes a little and takes another sip from his wine.

“That’s right, it isn’t,” he concedes, placing his glass on the tablecloth. “I’m Jewish on my mother’s side. My German, as you might have guessed, comes from that side. As does this wine.”

Her eyes sparkle and she leans over, propping her elbows on the table. Jack’s breath stutters in his lungs.

“Tell me about them?” she asks softly, and her lips are red as blood and fertile vines, “Your mother side? And the German, and the wine?”

He could kiss her now, he muses, if he weren’t such a bloody coward. But he is, so he takes one of her hands instead and squeezes her fingers gently.

“My mother met my father in Vienna, on a family vacation,” he begins quietly, leaning forward a little himself. “He was travelling through Europe with his elder brother, back then. My grandmother – Lea Goldman – did not approve … -“

He tells her of his parents’ elopement, of their move to Australia, of him and his brother being born here; tells her of her grandmother coming to pay a visit, doesn’t neglect to mention how she cried when she met her grandsons. He relates to her the hurt he felt in going away to war, how his grandmother sent him socks from behind enemy lines. He speaks of his cousins and their children, of how they correspond through endless letters; how he met them all in France when the blasted war was finally over. And when Phryne wipes at one stubborn, wayward tear, he tells her of uncle Moishe’s wine and of a crate he receives every year on Rosh Ha’shana.

She presses his fingers in silence, her smile a little wet, and he brings her hand to his lips, kissing the knuckles softly.

“I think Nana Lea would like you,” he says, smiling slightly. “You two are quite similar.”

Phryne sighs and tugs their entwined hands into her lap.

“I’d like her, too,” she assures him and his heart clenches.

Finally, something to write home about.

**Author's Note:**

> Mein Liebe Yingele - My darling boy in Yiddish  
> Yochanan - the Hebrew version of John  
> Neshama candle - a candle which burns for 24 hours straight. You light it during holidays and for the peace of the souls of the dead.  
> Rosh Ha'shana - Jewish New Year's


End file.
